About HD (2)

In the second part of our feature on high definition video, we look at the fundamental choices that need to be made when considering a high definition camcorder. Is yours a tape-based or tapeless future?

If you’re at the stage of investing in a new camcorder, either because you wish to upgrade or you’re starting from scratch, it’s very possible that you’ll be contemplating a high definition model. After all, with so-called HD Ready television displays now popping up all around us and with more high definition television channels becoming available, it’s no surprise that the subject of HD is on everyone’s minds at the moment. And, as we established in part one, it’s fair to say that the camcorder manufacturers and resellers are keen that you consider HD first when looking for a new camcorder.

With HD camcorders now capable of originating video clips at the full 1920 x 1080i (and even 1080p) pixels or 1280 x 720p resolution, it doesn’t really make sense to acquire those clips at a lesser quality, especially if you have an eye on the future. Once you’ve made that fundamental decision to buy an HD television display, of course, you’re automatically drawn towards acquiring a new HD camcorder as well.

It wasn’t that long ago that, for consumer-level and prosumer users at least, HD meant recording only to a MiniDV-style tape using a format pioneered by Sony called HDV. The company’s ground-breaking FX1E and Z1E camcorders were two models that enabled users to record high definition using the HDV format whilst giving the option of standard DV recording and playback, too. In addition to this, JVC’s GY-HD1000 (labelled by JVC as ProHD but utilising the HDV specification) also began to put HD on the sub-professional camcorder map.

Canon subsequently joined Sony and JVC in the marketplace with some equally superb products, being mainly the ground-breaking XL-H1 – a XL2 lookalike (in black) which has found great favour among serious digital film-makers the world over. Panasonic has stayed clear of HDV and tape-based high definition – at least in the consumer field – altogether, preferring to concentrate on its truly solid-state formats like P2 (in the professional domain) and SD Memory Card based models in the consumer market.

So what’s best for you? Well, if you’re at all unsure about entrusting your precious clips to either tiny embedded hard disc drives (HDD) or to flash Memory Cards, such as Sony’s Memory Stick Pro DUO and high-capacity SDHC cards, you still have a good choice in HDV models. Both Canon and Sony produce high-quality consumer HDV camcorders that record full 1920 x 1080p HD to Mini-DV tapes and which enable users to transfer to an editing computer using Windows/Vista or Apple’s Mac OSX via existing FireWire connections.

The choices available for users considering tape-based HD recording are diminishing, though still reasonably good, and the convenience of tape shooting and subsequent archiving of material are obvious, but for many the reliance on tape for shooting and editing are just too much to contemplate. The ease by which it’s possible to import video clips from tapeless media like HDD and memory card are just too convenient and too great; for at least one new HD recording format there’s no choice, either – it’s tapeless or nothing.

The signs are that the whole HD market is moving very rapidly in favour of tapeless production, and increasingly to solid-state – rather than hard-disc based – production at that.

Whilst it’s true that, in recording to tape in the time-honoured linear recording mode, HDV takes advantage of a data transfer rate of 25Mbps as opposed to AVCHD’s 17Mbps (depending upon the quality settings chosen), it’s also fair to predict that for many people tape is simply not an option when shooting home video, especially given that most of us are now familiar with the ease by which we can shoot, edit and share digital photographs. Whether you opt for tape, hard disc drive or wholly solid-state camera systems really depends on your personal needs – but with makers now running down tape and even DVD camcorder production it’s clear where the future of HD lies.

Compression: The Big Squeeze

Increasingly, manufacturers wishing to offer economical HD solutions to aspiring camcorder owners are turning to a new system of encoding video clips onto ever-decreasing spaces.

That system is called AVCHD. Developed by a consortium of leading companies that includes Sony, Panasonic and Canon, AVCHD uses a compression system based not upon MPEG2 as is used by standard video DVD (and, in a modified form, HDV) but a newer compression system based around an advanced MPEG4 video compression system called AVC/H.264.

H.264 is the latest weapon in the battle to compress very high quality picture data into a very small space; it’s being employed by satellite TV broadcasters as the basis for our HDTV channels, and it now sits at the heart of a new generation of camcorders that save their clips to hard disc drives, DVD and – more significantly – flash memory cards.

Panasonic’s 2007/2008 range of consumer HD camcorders, such as the HDC-SD9 and HDC-HS9, or Canon’s HG10 model, use the MPEG4-AVC/H.264 codec to compress full-specification 1920 x 1080i HD clips onto Hard Disc Drives or tiny high-capacity SD cards called SDHC. Without such a heavy compression it wouldn’t be possible to cram the mass of data onto such tiny media.

Getting connected

It’s no good shooting HD video if you can’t then view your clips in HD out in the real world, and for that reason you’ll find either HDMI or Component Digital output connectors on your new HD camcorder. Chances are that it will possess both. HDMI (which stands for High Definition Multi-media Interface) is a computer-style DVI connection that is now virtually the de-facto standard for connecting HDTV and video devices.

The slightly older Component connectors – identified by Red, Blue and Green plugs – also carry HD signals but with less convenience than the single HDMI connector. It’s worth noting that many camcorder makers supply Component cables with their products but not HDMI cabling – presumably to encourage you to spend more!

Back to: High Definition Part 1

Words: Colin Barrett, SimplyDV. Panasonic product images courtesy of Panasonic UK Limited. Used by kind permission. No unauthorised reproduction or distribution. Copyright 2002-2009.